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Queens Park surprised many around Scottish football last year, including their own fans, when they made the play-off’s for promotion. Ultimately, that ended in dismal defeat – 6-2 on aggregate at the hands of Arbroath. For a brief moment, the Glaswegian amateurs were close to the heights of the 2nd Division.

This season, like Arbroath who gatecrashed the dream last season, Queens Park find themselves knocked out the cup to Junior opposition. ﻿Bo’ness United, East Super League champions, were the victors over Scotland’s oldest club. A 2-1 victory was recorded on the day, a major blow for the fans, but one that may have a wider effect on the club.

A top heavy backroom structure, comparable to that of many SPL clubs, has been the target of criticism from some fans on the messgae boards.

Although, in my opinion, this is another example of how the gap in Scottish football is closing between the top Junior outfits and the SFL. Last season it was Irvine Meadow , knocking Arbroath out, and then going to Easter Road in the 4th round and giving a Hibs first 11 a good game. Before that Linlithgow Rose reaching the 4th round, losing to the eventual finalists; Queen of the South.

For years we’ve been calling for a more competitive SPL, restructuring and introducing more teams. Well, why not look at this at the bottom too. Instead of the SFL division Three being the basement division, where it is okay for teams to stagnate and remain SFL clubs without any real merit, look at the possibility of a pyramid structure with the Junior divisions. Creating a much more competitive brand of football at the bottom.

Terracing talk maybe, but is it so far off the mark? I’m far from a specialist of the SFL, so it’ll be interesting to hear the opinions of those who are.

2 Responses to “Queens Park, SFL and a big Scottish Pyramid!”

A pyramid should be introduced – just not this season or next, we might finish 10th!

But seriously though, I don’t think the juniors and the SFL are that close at all. They are capable of raising their game for the cup but they’d really need to get their act together for the league. In addition to this, most clubs outside the SFL simply don’t have the basic entry requirements (floodlights, etc) and huge cost would be incurred to upgrade. I’m not sure many junior sides would want to invest and a lot of players are quite happy playing at that level, banging in the goals at a lesser level and probably picking up better money.

In any case, Bo’ness didn’t even have to raise their (limited) game against us. We are mince!

I agree with everything you said, except from one point. I really do beleive that the standard is a lot more comparable than we believe. Not across the board obviously, but I genuinely think that you could pick ten teams from the various leagues across Scotland and make a league that would easily rival the SFL. I realise that it is never going to happen and exactly for the reasons you stated. We have little evidence in the past few years to really give a clear picture from either side though.

The lack of relegation from the 3rd Division has allowed teams to stagnate, because they can rest on the laurels. But that is really a problem across the whole of Scottish football.